Transcript: Mayor Adams Makes Cannabis and Public Safety-Related Announcement

September 19, 2024

Video available at: https://youtu.be/61Slbh_akiY

Deputy Mayor Philip Banks III, Public Safety: Good morning, everyone. I'm joined here today by New York City Sheriff Anthony Miranda, New York City Police Department Chief of Patrol John Chell, and Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry. 
From the FDNY, we have the FDNY Commissioner Robert Tucker, Chief Fire Marshal Daniel Flynn, and the Bronx Borough Commander John Sarracco. We also have representatives from the Department of Buildings. We have Assistant Commissioner for Tenant Protection Sal Agostino, and Chief Inspector for Emergency Response Team Richard Schwerdt. We're certainly welcomed by our elected officials, New York State Senator Luis Sepúlveda, and a New York State Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar. And of course, we have the mayor of the City of New York, Mayor Eric Adams. 

So today's announcement is going to be about illegal cannabis, but actually a little bit more. And there's a lot of people who say cannabis is legal now, who cares? And we're telling you now, we care and you should care. First of all, when you're purchasing, we have these illegal cannabis shops, you don't know what you're smoking, you don't know what you're ingesting. It's very similar to if you went to the store and you bought meat that had not gone through the FDA process. You don't know what you're taking. You are gambling, and you're not gambling with a dollar, you're gambling with your health. I ask you now, do you care? 

The second thing is that when the mayor explains to you what took place in this building, the person here put residents at risk. He put their lives at risk. Should you care now? We certainly care. The third thing, there's a process. You have to follow the rules. So what we see in this city when it comes to cannabis, and ghost cars, and scooters, and guns. People simply say, we're not following the rules. We don't care. Eric Adams says, we care, and you should care as well. 

This is very, very important. This is very, very critical. And now you're going to hear from the mayor of the City of New York, Eric Adams, on what we're doing about this process. Good morning, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. D.M. Banks and the entire team, I'm happy you went through those who are here, because the hallmark of this administration is collaboration. How do we come together, and how do we utilize all of the agencies involved to ensure that we keep the quality of life as we desire? 

This is what was grown inside one of the apartments behind us. And this is in contrast to what the state lawmakers, like Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar and others, made sure that we put in place a legalized cannabis industry. So that we can have legal, safe cannabis products in our stores. 

At this site, we seized 93 growing cannabis plants and 24 pounds of loose cannabis flower. Now this is a residential building. This is not a building where you should be growing cannabis. This was an illegal operation that was putting the legal market and the neighbors in jeopardy. A building has 20 units that are here in this location. There's dozens of families who call this building home, not to mention the surrounding buildings on this block, as you can see. 

This individual that wanted to grow cannabis here created not only a health environment because of the product that will go on the street. But also a health environment of the dangers of a fire, leaks, and other safety concerns. All because an illegal entity chose to skirt the law or attempt to skirt the law for their own profit. We will never allow profit over public safety, and the combination of our law enforcement and other regulatory agencies will ensure that we stay on top of these illegal operations. 
Large quantities, such as yesterday's and day before operation, that Sheriff Miranda and his team was able to locate a warehouse where you had almost $10 million worth of cannabis, or operations like this, where you're growing an illegal plant operation inside a building, would not go untended to. Illegal cannabis operations like this one, and the products they sell endanger our young people and quality of life of all of our communities. 

The city will not tolerate it, and the community will not tolerate it. The number of calls and tips we get from residents to tell us of these locations, they have become our partners in this pursuit to ensure we close down illegal cannabis operations. Whether it's in the storefront, basement, or apartment building like this one, we will keep New Yorkers safe in shuttering these illegal operations. 

And I want to be extremely clear, growing cannabis in an apartment presents a serious danger to families, neighbors, and communities. Illegal cannabis is not like the legal cannabis that goes through the regulatory process to make sure the substance you have is not dangerous to your body. These illegal operations, you don't know what is going on on these plants, what is sprayed, what is being used, what these plants actually encounter. They're dangerous products, and they have no place on our streets and no place in our community. 

We said time and time again, the illegal guys are smart, but we're smarter. And we're going to continue the pursuit until we ensure that all of these illegal operations are addressed. We removed $68 million of illegal cannabis products off our streets, closed over 1,150 illegal shops. And when you look at the numbers, that's a significant impact in a short period of time. And when we got the power through bills such as the smoke out, we knew that we can pursue this operation the way it had to be done to make the major impact that we're seeing. 

And over and over again, we want our legal shops to thrive. We want our legal shops to continue to hire locally. We want our legal shops to continue to produce a product that is safe and well tested. And we are going to go after those illegal operations. 
Again, I want to thank Commissioner Donlon, our fire commissioner who's also here as well, Commissioner Tucker, Commissioner Mayuga from DCWP, and the entire team that is operating together to make sure we go after these illegal shops. Job well done by our sheriff. He continues to ensure the proper deployment of resources to go after this quality of life issue that's in our city. Thank you, D.M. Banks.

Deputy Mayor Banks: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Next, we're going to hear from the sheriff of the City of New York, Sheriff Anthony Miranda.

Sheriff Anthony Miranda: Good morning. One first point, we want to make sure that we thank the mayor and the team for their support that they give to this operation. Identified it as a serious matter that needed the attention of all the resources of the city. 
And what you see today is the collaboration between the Sheriff's Office, the Police Department, the Fire Department, and the Buildings Department in response to what was discovered here. We want to thank the city marshals as well as specifically Marshal Smith who notified the Sheriff's Office and has followed the procedure of notifying us. They conducted an eviction at this location and discovered a dispensary in which they made an immediate notification to the Sheriff's Office for response. The Padlock to Protect team responded and took the appropriate action here. 

What you have seen inside and going to see is that this is a full processing system. This goes from a nursery to full grown plants. They had four rooms where they eliminated the walls in many locations. They altered the physical location of the facility. They had an elaborate air filtration system, irrigation system, cooling system, and their separate lighting system as well. We found propane tanks as well inside, and this is what the mayor is speaking about, the danger and the possibility of impacting all the families that live on this block. 

[Por eso,] primero, damos las gracias al alcalde por el apoyo representando la oficina del Alguacil. Estamos aquí presentes porque encontramos un local donde están creciendo plantas de cannabis dentro del edificio aquí. Es un peligro a nuestra comunidad y a la gente que está viviendo aquí. Es una cosa que merece nuestra atención, especialmente aquí y ahora. [Estamos aquí para decir] que es un problema en nuestra comunidad, y estamos trabajando con la gente de la comunidad para buscar a esta gente que están viviendo en nuestra comunidad.

Translation: So, first, we thank the mayor for his support in representing the Sheriff's Office. We are here because we found a location where individuals are growing cannabis plants inside the building here. It is a danger to our community and the people who are living here. It is something that requires immediate attention, especially here and now. We are here to say that this is a problem in our community, and we are working with the people in the community to find these people who are living in our community.

We're saying in plain English that these are people who are hiding in plain sight. The community knows who they are, and it's through the community's cooperation that we continue to identify and go after these locations. It is the collaboration of all the agencies that resulted in a successful operation today with no one getting hurt and securing the premises and making it safe. Thank you very much.

Deputy Mayor Banks: Thank you, sheriff. Next, we're going to hear from the FDNY commissioner, Robert Tucker.

Fire Commissioner Robert Tucker: Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, to our elected officials, Deputy Mayor Banks. Behind us is a message to all bad actors in New York that there is a new spirit of cooperation among public safety agencies to shut down operations like this and keep New Yorkers and members of law enforcement and public safety safe. 

Grow houses are very, very dangerous. The FDNY knows this way too well. You might recall in 2016, we lost Battalion Chief Mike Fahy in the Bronx, in Kingsbridge, at what turned out to be a grow house, but we were called there for a gas leak. While Chief Fahy was getting people out of that house, the house exploded and Chief Fahy was killed. We will never forget Chief Fahy, and we do not want anything like that to happen again. 

So with the cooperation of law enforcement and public safety, the FDNY is fully committed to being a part of any action like what took place yesterday. And we will be here, and we will work hard to keep New Yorkers safe and keep the members of law enforcement and public safety safe. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Banks: Thank you, commissioner. Next, we're going to hear from New York State Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar.

State Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar: Good morning. It's a great morning to be here in the Bronx, and congratulations to the city team under the mayor's leadership for shutting down this illegal operation. 

I'm State Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar, and on the first day of this legislative session, I pledged that I was going to help shut down all 36,000 illegal cannabis shops operating across New York State. I said we're going to smoke them out, and we're going to shut them down. And so I authored the SMOKEOUT Act and launched Operation SMOKEOUT in all five boroughs across this city. And what you saw was people coming together from the Bronx, South Queens, Brooklyn, everywhere, and speaking with one voice and saying we have to shut down these illegal shops. 

These illegal cannabis shops are hotbeds of criminal activity. They are magnets of crime. They also market candy to children. It's illegal cannabis that looks like candy. And when you ingest it, you don't know what you're getting, because it's an unregulated substance. So the whole city came together, and we spoke with one voice. The people spoke, and Albany listened, and SMOKEOUT Act passed. And now here we are, and the city has already shut down over 1,000 illegal shops. It's an amazing pace, an amazing record, especially if you compare it to last year. Last year, only one illegal cannabis shop was shut down. Now we've shut down over 1,000. So I was so proud to help deliver the power the city needed to get the job done. 

And this is only one part of the way I'm trying to improve quality of life for New Yorkers in Albany in partnership with the city. We have a problem with e-bikes. Almost everyone here has probably almost been hit by an e-bike. It's another universal problem. This is an industry that we need to regulate with common sense laws, such as a license plate, and insurance, and regulation of that sort for every e-vehicle. Additionally, we have ghost cars, a ghost car issue, which is why I've introduced ghost busting legislation. So we can take care of this problem once and for all. 

These are the quality of life issues that impact New Yorkers every day. And I'm so proud to work hand in hand with this team to make sure we make this a better, more livable city for everybody. Thank you so much.

Deputy Mayor Banks: Thank you, assemblymember. I believe now we're going to questions.

Question: [Inaudible.]

Sheriff Miranda: The city marshal was conducting an eviction at the location. When they opened the location, they observed what was inside, and they immediately made a notification to the Sheriff's Office, which then the Joint Compliance Task Force and Padlock to Protect team responded to take the appropriate action here. 

Question: [Inaudible.]

Sheriff Miranda: Failure to pay rent.

Question: [Inaudible.] Are you expecting this to be a problem in the future? Are you assigning anybody from the NYPD and Sheriff's Office?

Sheriff Miranda: Again, this is part of the information that we receive from the community. If we find growing locations, we're going to be responding to those as well as the factories. It is a joint operation with the Police Department. And when we encounter stuff like this, in particular residential buildings, it will be the Building's Department and Fire Department to help render the location safe. 

Question: [Inaudible.]

Sheriff Miranda: I believe we're going to walk you through the premise so you'll be able to see the setup that was inside the location. It is a basement apartment, and you'll see it connected. They were connected directly to city electricity as well. That's why it was required to have other resources from the city respond. 

Question: [Inaudible.]

Sheriff Miranda: It's still part of the investigation that's ongoing. There are no arrests associated with an eviction. There was nobody in the premise at the time of the eviction, so there's no arrests in this. But it is an ongoing investigation with the Narcotics Bureau of the NYPD. 

Question: [Inaudible.]

Sheriff Miranda: It'll be part of an ongoing investigation.

Mayor Adams: Since it was an eviction, the investigation is going to look into who actually had the apartment, who had the lease. This was not put up yesterday. It's been here for what appears to be a while. But trust me, it's not about just taking these plants. We want to go after the person that's responsible. 

And so the Police Department, in coordination with the Sheriff's Department, is going to find the person who's responsible for this and to see if there are other leases under his name throughout the city, because this was set up solely to what appears to just grow illegal cannabis. And we want to go after anyone that's attempting to do this indoors. 

I think that what Commissioner Tucker shared with us really personifies how important this is. We lost a member of the FDNY through an explosion. When you have propane tanks, which are extremely dangerous, when you have the lighting issue here, this is a real problem that we're going to address, and we're going to find out who's responsible. Why don't we do a walkthrough?

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